Kitchener had the Mahdi's tomb destroyed in 1898 and his skull taken, and Parliament debated it before the skull was buried at Wadi Halfa

Muhammad Ahmad, who proclaimed himself the Mahdi, died of typhus in June 1885. His chief deputy, the Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, took over the Mahdist state. The Mahdi was buried in a tomb at Omdurman. In 1898 Anglo-Egyptian forces under Herbert Kitchener defeated the Khalifa. Kitchener ordered the tomb destroyed. In a letter read to the House of Commons, he wrote that he acted on advice from Muslim officers and that "the Mahdi's bones being thrown into the Nile" happened in his absence. He wrote that "the skull of the Mahdi was preserved and handed over to me for disposal." Winston Churchill wrote that Kitchener carried off the head in a kerosene can^†. Queen Victoria asked whether it had been necessary to desecrate the tomb^†. On 5 June 1899 the Commons debated a £30,000 grant to Kitchener. Henry Campbell-Bannerman called the act "a gross blunder." Arthur Balfour, for the government, said vengeance did not enter into Kitchener's motive. John Morley cited Lord Cromer that the skull "is now buried at Wady Halfa." The House approved the grant by 393 votes to 51. The tomb was rebuilt in 1947^† and stands in Omdurman in 2026.